King Charles II was restored to the throne of England after the fall of the shortlived Commonwealth in 1660.

Language

Robert Downey Jr in Restoration Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/OXFORD FILM

Dissolute fictional doctor Robert Merivel (Robert Downey Jr) has pawned his instruments, and must go to his father, a glover, for cash to get them back. His father agrees, reluctantly, on the grounds "that the son of a glovemaker should not be denied the use of those gifts that marked you as a physician before you could spell physic!" English spelling had been somewhat standardised by the King James Bible of 1611 (which spells "physic" as "physick", in "Learn before thou speak, and use physick or ever thou be sick", Apocrypha, Sir 1:19). Even so, bearing in mind that Samuel Johnson would not complete the first authoritative English dictionary until 1755, and this film is set in the 1660s, Merivel's dad is being a little harsh.

Medicine

Restoration Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Merivel impresses Charles II (Sam Neill) when he, alone among a group of physicians, dares to touch the exposed, beating heart of an elderly patient who lives with a metal plate covering a hole in his chest. Would a group of 17th-century physicians be squeamish about touching human bodies? Possibly: in the days before anaesthetics or medical hygiene, surgery was a dangerous, violent business, usually performed by barbers, while scholarly physicians reserved their skills for more genteel treatments. Would an elderly man survive in the days before medical hygiene with a gaping hole in his chest, especially if he let random doctors stick their mucky fingers into it? Possibly not.

Love

Polly Walker in Restoration Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/OXFORD FILM

The king retains Merivel to minister to his King Charles spaniels. Rather an egotistical breed of dog to own if you actually are King Charles, but his fondness for them is accurate – and, to be fair, they weren't called that at the time. The king likes Merivel, because he fixes his dogs and can fart on cue. Merivel likes the court, because courtiers get to wear plumed hats, eat pineapples and cavort with naked ladies. But the king has a problem. One of his mistresses, Barbara Castlemaine, is jealous of another, Celia Clemence. His solution? Merivel should be knighted and marry Clemence. A mix of reality and fiction: Barbara Castlemaine really was a mistress of Charles II, and produced a number of his children (between four and six – the parentage of two of them is disputed). Celia Clemence is fictional.

Hospitals

Restoration Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/OXFORD FILM

Predictably, Clemence is smoking hot. Merivel falls for her. Big mistake. The king boots him out of his courtesy estate. He is obliged to move in with his old friend John Pearce (David Thewlis), a Quaker running a hospital for people in mental distress. Restoration is adapted from Rose Tremain's acclaimed novel, but what works at book length doesn't necessarily work when squeezed into a cinematic runtime. Few films could pull off the abrupt change of pace from frippery, fruit and farting to earnest musing on the abject state of 17th-century mental healthcare. Restoration certainly can't. It doesn't help that Meg Ryan turns up with an Irish accent as one of Merivel's patients, Katherine. She is fixated on performing a silly walk. First he offers her music therapy. Then he shags her. Er, are we still supposed to be laughing at this?

Illness

Meg Ryan in Restoration Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/OXFORD FILM

England is ravaged by the Great Plague of 1665-66. Hanging out with the mentally ill has been something like a gap year for Merivel. Where previously he was a feckless playboy, he has now seen Bad Things, and has noticed that not everyone in the entire world is having a totally awesome time. This profound realisation has imbued him with a tiresome new nobility of purpose. He dons a mask in the shape of a bird's head and goes out under a false name to give succour to the plague victims. The bird hat, daft though it may look, is accurate: it was a sort of primitive gas mask filled with perfume or herbs, which proponents of miasma theory believed would ward off infection. If only the film-makers had applied this level of attention to the plot.